Monolight, that's how science works. People draw conclusions from available data. If there is no data on gay parenting (and there wouldn't have been), then any conclusions about the effectiveness of gay parenting are going to be questionable, at best. For example, those studies were probably comparing two-parent families to one-parent families, so trying to draw conclusions about gay parents from them makes very little sense, since they didn't include any gay couples to begin with.

What if a gay man and a lesbian female married each other and had kids? What harm could they cause? Would that be unacceptable?

It wasn't unacceptable at any time prior to, oh, I don't know, maybe 1990, because nobody knew they were gay. Just look at Michele and Maurice Bachmann. As for all of those gay-pretending-to-be-hetero couples, I'm sure the children turned out to be horrific serial murderers, even the adopted ones. But, Hey! At least they didn't grow up with homosexual parents!

rhocam ~ I guess there are several trillion cells in a man, and one in an amoeba, so to be generous, lets say that there were a billion. That is one every fifteen years. So in my lifetime I should have seen two evolutionary changes.

Although, homosexuality is sometimes infectious while being left or right handed is not - but we are talking about adults, so they should know what they are doing.

How about calling it peer influence (that's what I had in mind) as I explained in reply #25

How much has peer influence affected your sexual proclivity? I'd suspect none at all, so why do you try and infer a different standard for others?

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rhocam ~ I guess there are several trillion cells in a man, and one in an amoeba, so to be generous, lets say that there were a billion. That is one every fifteen years. So in my lifetime I should have seen two evolutionary changes.

The truth is absolute. Life forms are specks of specks (...) of specks of dust in the universe.Why settle for normal, when you can be so much more? Why settle for something, when you can have everything?We choose our own gods.

How about calling it peer influence (that's what I had in mind) as I explained in reply #25

Peer influence? How is that an excuse for profound ignorance? You stated, as a fact, that homosexuality is sometimes infectious. This is completely, utterly, entirely false. If you are willing to just go along with what your "peers" tell you, without any critical examination or fact checking, then I submit that you are willing to believe in anything. If you think that peer influence is a proper substitute for rational discourse, you really are a blight on human civilization.

EDIT: It appears that you believe peer influence causes homosexuality. My apologies for misunderstanding your point. However, this is still a profoundly ignorant statement. The only conceivable way that peer influence could affect homosexuality is that people "in the closet" are motivated by those who are openly gay to embrace their natural sexuality. In other words, peer influence helps them to overcome the ignorance of bigots such as yourself. My brother is gay. How come his influence hasn't made me gay? My roommate in college is gay, why didn't I become homosexual?

How much has peer influence affected your sexual proclivity? I'd suspect none at all, so why do you try and infer a different standard for others?

Hm. To try to keep an open mind and not be dogmatic about it, consider this:

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At the lowest level, behavior-into-attitude conversion begins with impression management theory which says you present to your peers the person you wish to be. You engage in something economists call signaling by buying and displaying to your peers the sorts of things which give you social capital. If you live in the Deep South you might buy a high-rise pickup and a set of truck nuts. If you live in San Francisco you might buy a Prius and a bike rack. Whatever are the easiest to obtain, loudest forms of the ideals you aspire to portray become the things you own, like bumper stickers signaling to the world you are in one group and not another. Those things then influence you to become the sort of person who owns them.

I once briefly hung out with a group of people who were all a weirdos/ outcasts of one sort of another. Homo- and bi- sexuals were heavily overrepresented. One particular young, lost, borderline mentally unstable member of this group decided he was bisexual, possibly homosexual. I did not then nor do I now, think he had any actual homosexual proclivities. He was just a loser looking for a place where he fit in. And I think he was trying very hard to fit in with this group.

So maybe if you blow enough dudes, and think "this aint so bad..." evenutally it becomes "I like this". Guys in prison seem to make due. That raises the questions "does that really make you gay?" and "what does it mean to 'really' be gay?"

I do not think teh gey is contagious. But maybe Kurt Vonnegut is right. Maybe we are what we pretend.

Of course, there may already be a ton of studies about "curing" homosexuality that say this idea is all wet.

Attraction is a funny thing. I've always been drawn to a certain type of man, for as long as I've been old enough to be aware of men as a distinctly different entity than myself, a female. Early on it manifested as an attraction to the "bad boy" type, and I'm well aware that this is a pretty common phase for most women. In me, it never really subsided, but as I got older, and more self aware, it shifted a bit.

Now, at middle age, I'm still attracted to that same type, but I've also realized that what I'm actually attracted to is an air of self confidence that shows in a specific way. I like people that do not automatically follow the crowd, who think independently, who don't disguise their true selves in order to fit in. I'm not a fan of rebellion for it's own sake, and have little patience for those who are. The distinction matters.

My point is this - attraction is what it is. My attraction to a specific type was troublesome for several years, but once I saw the real draw, I was able to make better choices. However, trying to ignore my attraction to "bad boys' and instead date "nice guys" - men I wasn't attracted to - would have been stupid. Not only would it have been dumb to do to myself, it would have been completely shitty thing to do to whomever I chose to date.

Attraction is hardwired. I'm not attracted to independent-minded women, despite my strong attraction to independent-minded men. I like them, I'm just not attracted to them. That's because I'm heterosexual - why would it be any different for someone who is homosexual?

Edited to correct grammar error.

« Last Edit: February 20, 2013, 11:17:32 AM by Jag »

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“Be skeptical. But when you get proof, accept proof.” –Michael Specter

How much has peer influence affected your sexual proclivity? I'd suspect none at all, so why do you try and infer a different standard for others?

Hm. To try to keep an open mind and not be dogmatic about it, consider this:

Quote

At the lowest level, behavior-into-attitude conversion begins with impression management theory which says you present to your peers the person you wish to be. You engage in something economists call signaling by buying and displaying to your peers the sorts of things which give you social capital. If you live in the Deep South you might buy a high-rise pickup and a set of truck nuts. If you live in San Francisco you might buy a Prius and a bike rack. Whatever are the easiest to obtain, loudest forms of the ideals you aspire to portray become the things you own, like bumper stickers signaling to the world you are in one group and not another. Those things then influence you to become the sort of person who owns them.

I don't consider that a ( true choice ) behavior, i.e. buying truck nuts, is governed by the same hypothesis as that of behavior that is inherent in ones physiology, i.e. sexual preference. I'm open for discussion though. I think the two are not similar, one is who you actually are, and the other is more of a nod in the direction of whom you'd like to be seen as...

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rhocam ~ I guess there are several trillion cells in a man, and one in an amoeba, so to be generous, lets say that there were a billion. That is one every fifteen years. So in my lifetime I should have seen two evolutionary changes.

Yeah. I'm too tired to contribute anything intelligent to this thread this evening. However, just before I logged on the forum, my 6 year old was watching this video on TV.

If you have no idea why this is relevant, perhaps you are too young to remember the original video.

It appears that there is a huge Disney-channel endorsed conspiracy to recruit young children into the homosexual lifestyle by using cultural allusions to the original gay anthem. And probably subliminal messages as well. And if all of our children grow up to be gay, and fail to reproduce, then all of humanity may disappear. This may, in fact, be the last generation of humanity.

I don't fully buy it either, but I do think sexuality is somewhat more maleable than people think.

I'm convinced that its very common to be somewhere in the middle of the sexual continuum. In other words, many people are not completely straight, or completely gay. My response is, "so what?" Anyone who understands the obvious fact that sex is not just about procreation (otherwise we'd only come into season once or twice a year like dogs do), and lets go of the idea that all sex must be "open to children from god," can finally get it, that it doesn't matter who one loves. Its no one's business but the lovers. I still don't understand why people get so upset about love. Why must it all look like Ozzie and Harriet?

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If we ever travel thousands of light years to a planet inhabited by intelligent life, let's just make patterns in their crops and leave.

I don't fully buy it either, but I do think sexuality is somewhat more maleable than people think.

Totally agree, it's more of a continuum than a binary state, hence bi-sexual.

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rhocam ~ I guess there are several trillion cells in a man, and one in an amoeba, so to be generous, lets say that there were a billion. That is one every fifteen years. So in my lifetime I should have seen two evolutionary changes.

In my opinion, it's very unfair to a child to assign him for adoption by a homosexual couple. He will be exposed to deviant behavior and learn it. He will be laughed at by others at school. I am very sorry for such children.

I'll bite; what "deviant behavior" are we talking about here? Two people of the same sex kissing? Sounds more like you're just grossed out at the thought.

"While I was a child and a teenager, I had absolutely no notion of all that and I naturally adored the two women who raised me alone and with courage. But I did not pose questions about the nature of their relationship,which I therefore did not figure out. My father, who had abandoned my mother when I was three, precisely due to the relation she was engaged in, was never around, notably when I needed him. Also I turned as much as possible to the men of my surroundings, who begged for an oversized and sometimes unhealthy place in my life."

One will not know of this prior to feeling the consequences for his life as a man. That transom is still impossible to cross. "All my life as an adult was thrust out of whack by this experience," he blurts. But he stops himself there. "It is too intimate a matter." Pushed, he concedes, "I offer you a testimony. It's not the same in value as a poll. Other children, placed in the same conditions, have certainly grown up and reacted differently. But to the best of my knowledge, no serious study has been carried out in due diligence about this topic, within scientifically irrefutable conditions and bearing upon a large sample size. I doubt that many children of gay couples will open themselves up easily and honestly to journalists on this very delicate matter. It's traumatizing to speak of suffering that one would rather silence."

This same site also contains (among other things) another such testimonial. It might be of interest to someone who is like me, not convinced (or at least defininitely not fully convinced) by the results of "current research" about LGBT parenting.

Although, homosexuality is sometimes infectious while being left or right handed is not - but we are talking about adults, so they should know what they are doing.

My bold.Please cite examples, I'm not familiar with how this transpires.

By Merriam Webster:Infectious - 3. spreading or capable of spreading rapidly to othersHomosexuality - 2. erotic activity with another of the same sex

To find out how erotic activity with another of the same sex is sometimes capable of spreading to others of different sex, google for: gay seduce straight

from 1st page:How do I seduce a straight guy when i am gay? - Yahoo! AnswersHow to seduce a straight guy - National Bisexuality | Examiner.comHow to get a Straight Seduced in 8 Easy StepsHow to seduce a straight guy | Gay Cork CommunityRead This If You Wanna Learn How To Seduce Straight Guys ...

To find out how erotic activity with another of the same sex is sometimes capable of spreading to others of different sex, google for: gay seduce straight

This is a common gay fantasy. I've not done the google search, as you've suggested, mainly because all the sources you provided are less than rigorous. Yahoo answers? That's the place where anyone can just post an answer, right?

Do you think any of those techniques if used by a woman would work on you? Why or why not?

Monolight, that's how science works. People draw conclusions from available data. If there is no data on gay parenting (and there wouldn't have been), then any conclusions about the effectiveness of gay parenting are going to be questionable, at best.

The site: http://www.apa.org/helpcenter/sexual-orientation.aspx says:What causes a person to have a particular sexual orientation?There is no consensus among scientists about the exact reasons that an individual develops a heterosexual, bisexual, gay, or lesbian orientation. Although much research has examined the possible genetic, hormonal, developmental, social, and cultural influences on sexual orientation, no findings have emerged that permit scientists to conclude that sexual orientation is determined by any particular factor or factors. Can there exist something that is not determined by any factor (has no reason)?If on the other hand there are factors, only scientists don't know yet which ones, then we can't really safely rule out developmental, social, and cultural influences.

Many think that nature and nurture both play complex roles;Oh, then it's not only me..

Monolight, we can toss individual experiences around all day. I'll be you that I can quote screwed up children of heterosexual parents many, many more times than you can quote screwed up children of gay parents, and not just because there are more of them. The gay parents I've known have raised very nice children who turned into very nice, well adjusted adults. Its about parenting, not sexuality. Good parents TALK to their kids. If you're implying that these kids were "hit on" by gay male friends of the family, then I am very surprised. Gay does not equal pedophilia. People can parent badly, regardless of any orientation issues. Especially in the United States, where, quite frankly, I think you'd have to look long and hard to find any family that's completely functional and healthy.

Monolight, we can toss individual experiences around all day. I'll be you that I can quote screwed up children of heterosexual parents many, many more times than you can quote screwed up children of gay parents, and not just because there are more of them.

But this man is pointing to the fact of his parents being LGBT as the cause of his life screwed (and not the usual bad things).

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The gay parents I've known have raised very nice children who turned into very nice, well adjusted adults. Its about parenting, not sexuality. Good parents TALK to their kids.

Parents are statistically average. Also, LGBT parents are statistically average. Critics point out that the LGBT parents research was mainly done for well educated white lesbians without financial problems.

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If you're implying that these kids were "hit on" by gay male friends of the family, then I am very surprised. Gay does not equal pedophilia.

Pedophilia is a deliberate act. He didn't mean that gay is pedophilia and I am not messing those things either.

Monolight, ask many gay/bi/lesbian/trans kids whether their straight parents messed them up because of the parent's sexuality and prejudices about it. One person's personal experience is not evidence of any trends at all.

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If we ever travel thousands of light years to a planet inhabited by intelligent life, let's just make patterns in their crops and leave.

This is a common gay fantasy. I've not done the google search, as you've suggested, mainly because all the sources you provided are less than rigorous. Yahoo answers

This not about particular techniques but about the fact that gays are interested in this. The actual techniques are irrelevant (assuming no violence). So in your opinion, seducing straight are ONLY fantasies - I don't think so.